Updated for Java Edition 26.3 (October 2026).
A windswept forest is the wooded version of the windswept hills: rough, steep hills covered in spruce and oak, with emerald ore in the stone and llamas on the slopes. It is one of the rarer Overworld biomes. In our sample of 300 Java 26.3 seeds, a quarter of worlds had one within 1,000 blocks of spawn.
| Dimension | Overworld |
|---|---|
| Where it generates | Rough hills among cold and temperate forests, usually bordering taiga, birch forest or dark forest |
| How common | 0.17% of the surface in our sample (about 1 block in 590) |
| Distance from spawn | Median 1,762 blocks; within 1,000 blocks in 25% of seeds, within 2,000 in 61% (our sample) |
| Mobs | Llamas, sheep, pigs, cows and chickens, plus the usual hostile mobs at night |
| Notable blocks | Spruce and oak trees, bushes, emerald ore, infested stone underground |
| Structures | Abandoned camps (26.3), ruined portals |
| Climate | Temperature 0.2, downfall 0.3 |
| Biome ID | minecraft:windswept_forest |
| Added in | Java Edition 1.7 as Extreme Hills+; renamed Wooded Mountains in 1.13 and Windswept Forest in 1.18 |
Windswept forest vs windswept hills and taiga
The windswept forest shares its climate, animals and ores with the windswept hills. The difference is the trees: the forest version is covered in them, while the hills have only a scattering. It is easy to confuse with a taiga because both are full of spruce, but the two play very differently:
| Feature | Windswept forest | Windswept hills | Taiga |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trees | Mostly spruce with some oak, fairly dense | The same mix, but only a few trees | Spruce |
| Animals | Llamas and farm animals | Llamas and farm animals | Wolves, foxes, rabbits and farm animals |
| Emerald ore | Yes | Yes | No |
| Villages | No | No | Yes |
| How common (our sample) | 0.17% of the surface | 0.23% of the surface | 3.3% of the surface |
| Median distance from spawn (our sample) | 1,762 blocks | 1,419 blocks | 658 blocks |
So if you are standing in spruce trees and the ground is steep and broken, with llamas instead of wolves, you are in a windswept forest. It is also a longer trip: in our sample of 300 Java 26.3 seeds, the nearest windswept forest was almost three times as far from spawn as the nearest taiga.
How to find a windswept forest
In our sample, the windswept forest’s edge touched taiga 23% of the time, birch forest 14%, dark forest 13%, old growth birch forest 12% and snowy taiga 11%. That spread is the best clue: look where cold spruce forest meets birch or dark oak forest and the ground starts climbing into rough hills.
These three Java 26.3 seeds have one within about 150 blocks of spawn. Each coordinate is inside the biome, checked at block level.
| Seed | Windswept forest at | From spawn | Map |
|---|---|---|---|
-3037528758873616311 |
X -94, Z -110 | 95 blocks | Open on the map |
6771975629874302160 |
X 34, Z 102 | 108 blocks | Open on the map |
-1872587071853328997 |
X 202, Z -790 | 149 blocks | Open on the map |
With cheats on, /locate biome minecraft:windswept_forest gives the nearest one, or paste your seed into the biome finder to see them all around spawn. These are Java seeds; Bedrock worlds from the same number are different.
What you find in a windswept forest
Llamas
Llamas spawn here in herds of four to six. Tame one by riding it with an empty hand until it stops bucking you off. A tamed llama can carry a chest, and if you lead one with a lead, nearby llamas follow it in a caravan, which makes them handy for moving a lot of blocks. You can’t steer a llama, though, so they are pack animals, not mounts.
Emerald ore
Emerald ore only generates under mountain and windswept biomes, and this is one of them. It gets more common the higher up the stone is, so mine the exposed hillsides and the rock under the summits rather than digging deep.
Infested stone
Below Y 63, some of the stone here is infested: it looks like ordinary stone but releases a silverfish when you break it. Kill silverfish quickly, because a hurt one can call more out of the infested blocks around it.
Wood
About two trees in three are spruce and the rest are oak, so one trip covers both kinds of logs. Since 1.21.5 you will also see fallen logs on the ground and small bushes between the trees.
Structures
Villages, pillager outposts and woodland mansions don’t generate in windswept forests. Since Java 26.3, abandoned camps do, with a design for this biome, and ruined portals can appear on the slopes.
What changed in 2025-26
In Wilderness Bound (Java 26.3, September 2026), abandoned camps can generate in windswept forests, with their own windswept forest design. Abandoned camp loot can also include a new explorer map that leads to a windswept forest camp.
In Spring to Life (Java 1.21.5, March 2025), pigs, cows and chickens that spawn here are the cold variants, and cold chickens lay blue eggs. Babies bred by players take a parent’s variant instead. Sheep spawn with cold-biome wool colors, so black is the most common. Fallen oak and spruce trees now generate here, some covered in mushrooms or vines, and the new bush block grows in small patches.
Source: the official 26.3 and 1.21.5 release notes.
How we measured
The numbers on this page come from our own seed map engine, running Java Edition 26.3 world generation. We generated 300 random seeds and sampled every 16th block across a 10,240 by 10,240 block square centered on each world’s spawn. “How common” is the biome’s share of those samples; “distance from spawn” is how far the nearest sample of the biome was. The seeds above were picked from the same run, and each coordinate was re-checked at block level.
